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Niclas Wallin

You know that quote “you can’t score if you don’t shoot”? There are many variations of it but the main message is telling you that you will not score unless you shoot. Yes, that is true more than 99.9% of the time but sometimes that 0.01% comes into play.

There was no shot by Washington and no shot recorded for Washington. But unfortunately there are only a couple of Niclas Wallin’s out there and as far as I’m concerned there is only one that has played in the NHL. For everyone else, they have to get goals the old-fashioned way. Shooting.

Stats are as of November 21, 2013.

There are three individual players with more than 90 shots. Alex Ovechkin (112), Zach Parise (101) and Evander Kane (93). Now it would seem Ovechkin is the better shooter out of the three with more shots, goals and a better shooting %, but stand Ovi’s Capitals up against the Evander Kane’s Jets and there is a huge difference between the average shots on goal per game.

Winnipeg averages 32.3 shots per game (4th in NHL), while Washington shoots an average of 29.5 times per game (18th in NHL). As for Minnesota, they’re 24th in the NHL with 28.3 shots per game.

The Jets have two of the top ten shooters and three in the top thirty. Those aren’t incredible numbers but it does make Washington shooters look like jokes. After Ovi, the next highest shooter is defenseman John Carlson with 54 shots. Good for 81st in the league. You can do the math yourself. Ovechkin has 58 more shots than second place Carlson. I don’t know about you, but I’d rather have the slightly above average shooters in Winnipeg over the Alex and the gang in D.C. Washington has some work to do if they want to keep up in the Eastern Conference. As we all know, goals wins games and defense wins championships but the Caps should focus on the last part of that when the time comes.